


Voidfish (In Triplicate)

by CleoCirce



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-07-28 13:34:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16242689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CleoCirce/pseuds/CleoCirce
Summary: The first night after reuniting with her family is not any harder than the 4000 nights preceding it. Lucretia tells herself this is not a lie.But she has missed wooden ducks.





	Voidfish (In Triplicate)

     Lucretia knows they’re coming, and she braces herself as best she can to see them again. She manages to keep her cool by having her voice just go dead so they can’t see how much it hurts to watch her family stare at her without recognition. When Fischer sees Magnus the great fish slams up against the side of his tank in joy. Trying to get close again. But Magnus can’t see him. Can’t even perceive him. Just stares squintily at the void in his vision. Scrunches his ears at the strange buzzing lack of sound. The sound Lucretia can hear. It is a low mournful sound, resonating an ache in her stomach and growing louder and when Taako hands Lucretia Lup’s umbrella and she realizes they found her body and don’t even know, the sound becomes so loud her vision whites out at the edges. No. she says firmly. I don’t know anything about that umbrella. No one does.

     That night Lucretia turns herself invisible and silences the space around her and steals away into the boys dorm room. They’ve lost so much of their memory Taako hasn’t even cast any warding spells. He must not know them anymore. Seeing them like this is easier. She can pretend for a moment that it’s just another night on the Starblaster, after a late night of chronicling, Lucretia stops by to check-in on her fellow IPRE members asleep in their bunks. She only lingers a moment. Her resolve must stay strong now more than ever. They’ve got the gauntlet back. They can get back the rest. No town will ever be burned away again the way that Phandalin was. That’s why she did this. It’s why she doesn’t regret it.

     She kneels down to where Magnus had dropped his pack. She carefully opens it, roots through the robot arms, and finds the small collection of wooden ducks he was keeping in the bottom. She lifts out the plainest one, the least likely to be missed. It’s stunning. Twelve years since she and Magnus lived together. Twelve years since she’s sat next to him by a fire in the evening, watching him hum to himself as he methodically shaved slivers of wood away from a block until there was a duck in his hands. He’s improved immensely in that time. The duck is beautiful, perfectly smooth, shaped in a way that you can almost see the fluff of the feathered body even through the solid wood. She wraps the duck carefully in her gown, closes the pack, and leaves as silently as she entered.

     It’s been a few months since the baby voidfish was born. Fischer will never forgive her for taking him away, but that’s okay. Lucretia is not expecting any of the people she loves will ever forgive her for any of the things she’s done. But her convictions are wrought in steel. The amount of pain and death and slaughter caused by the seven relics is unbearable. It hurts to comprehend how deeply she and her friends hurt this entire civilization. It hurts to hear the voidfish singing at night. The eerie mournful song that echoes through the halls like wind over moors. Fischer quiets when he sees her enter the room.

_I’m sorry._ She says it in her head because she can’t help it. She doesn’t apologize aloud. It could never be enough. But she approaches all the same. The large fish floats heavily in the tank, at eye level. Fischer is keeping her secrets from the world. She’s the one keeping their family a secret.

     “I brought something for you. A present.” She reveals the wooden duck from the folds of her robes. The low level vibration Fischer emits sets her teeth on edge and makes the bones that cage her heart ache. Lucretia floats up to the tank lid and lifts it open, dropping the duck inside. It sinks down to the center of the tank and the voidfish delicately retrieves it with a gentle translucent tendril. It holds the duck close to the center of its mass and sinks back into the shadowed depths of the tank bobbing gently to the rhythm of its neverending mournful song. Lucretia sinks down too, to her knees on the floor. Folds her legs and leans her back against the tank.

     This moment is not harder than all the moments before it. She has had to be alone. She knows why she did this. She can be strong enough alone to do everything that needs to be done. But it’s as if suddenly everything hard in the last twelve years-twelve years? How did it get so long…- has hit her all at once. She tries desperately not to feel it at all. But the voidfish’s mournful cries rumble through her body. Hidden to everyone but her. She has to bear the weight. She has too.

     Lucretia stands. It’s time to sleep. It will be easier in the morning. This at least is true.vAs she turns to go there is a small splash and then a little clatter on the floor. Fischer has dropped the duck back out of the tank. She looks up at him confused but he only looms above her. Staring without eyes. The weight of responsibility. But Lucretia bears it well. She picks up the duck and leaves.

     Junior’s tank sits on Lucretia’s desk. Her bed is in a hidden alcove along the left wall. She opens the small tank and drops in the duck. Junior is confused and intrigued. Picks up the duck as if to study it intently. Then spins in a little circle, almost caressing it.

     As Lucretia climbs into bed she wonders if the baby voidfish had been born in another cycle, if he would consider this duck worth broadcasting. The way Fischer once did. She wishes the whole world could dream tonight of the beauty of a wooden duck. But they will never know.

**Author's Note:**

> This story came from essentially one place. Imagining that when the voidfish saw Magnus again, he was overjoyed, but all Magnus saw was a void. 
> 
> Also, that Lucretia missed the wooden ducks. 
> 
> Please feel free to cry in the comments with me about TAZ.


End file.
